Email versus text to gite guests?

Thanks for the replies everyone. I’ve been wondering for sometime and what made me think this is an issue was something in today’s Guardian about Boomers talking to Zoomers (or something!) This is what made me think:

Is email really dead?

John Lee, 61, Dundee

Scott-Turner: I have 10,000 unopened emails.

Ayo Ogunleye: If I emailed my friend saying: “Do you want to meet up?” they’d probably laugh. Phones are here for a reason.

Baggaley: The only people who email me are Uber Eats and Sainsbury’s.

Good point Kirstea. I’m all for asking my guests what they want.

Because I’m in the hospitality business and as I want repeat business I go out of my way to give them what they want.

I think you maybe right Gareth. Follow up with a quick text after a few days saying did they get it. But I’ll start with Kirstea’s suggestion first and check how they want me to contact them.

Not sure, since in all cases they HAVE communicated with me by email and I them when they are booking - at that point they are making an effort to keep in touch. Afterwards, not so sure. :thinking:

Thanks @graham - I’ll explore further, especially if they say they do prefer text contact.

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Entirely your choice re contact … I suspect repeat business will come because of the excellent holiday folk have spent at your place… :hugs:

I suspect SPAM killed email rather than anything else.

I have email, SMS and Twitter on the phone - email is not really any less “instant” than the other two.

I like WhatsApp for contacting guests - you know when they have read it and you can send them Google Map links - but WhatsApp may not work for all generations.

If your guests are teenagers perhaps try TikTok and putting you instructions to music and perform a little dance!

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and any voice calls are free so no roaming charges - WhatsNotToLike about WhatsApp :wink:

See this thread…

:wink::joy:

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Sue, are you using a Yahoo or Google email address?

They seem to occasionally get treated as spam by the recipient’s email client.

but the alternatives like Telegram are allegedly more secure than WhatsApp - it’s just that the take-up may not be so high. The way forward is of course to have multiple opportunities to meet your client’s expectations - little point in sending a Telegram message if the Client doesn’t have it.
I was only really providing an example of the opportunities available, not necessarily recommending a particular solution from the long list of those available.

We use whatever the guest uses to contact us. Often whatsApp. But people just don’t reply…whatever you use

I guess that could be if there is no “call to action” in the message. If they read it only as informational, they may not feel there is a need to respond positively, or otherwise. Others of course may not understand that such messages in either direction are foc crossing Country or network boundaries.

You may well have it right! It is quite (old school) british to reply even if just a one word “thanks”.

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Nope it’s an Orange address. I know hotmail can be a problem as well - hence I don’t use them.

It’s quite frustrating that, since my messages just disappear into the ether. OH suggests I tag my emails so I know they’ve been opened. I personally don’t like that and always make a point of refusing it and instead replying personally.

and IIRC it relies on the recipient clicking to send the receipt.

I use thunderbird as my email client and there I have 2 options ‘return receipt’ and ‘delivery notification’ - for things I want to be sure people have received I use both!

I thought I had covered that issue about WhatsApp Tory.

Yeah you did, just wanted to put it out there for those that have no idea what privacy they are handing over about themselves and everyone in thier contacts list! You kno I can’t resist :rofl:

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I’m afraid I didn’t read this article because it appears you can’t unless you accept all their cookies.
This is a big bugbear of mine!

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I didn’t see any such restriction (using Firefox) but it does ask (in French) “Would you like to receive our latest news in your browser?” for which you can select “later” or “yes”. If you make no selection, you can still read the article which has some good points in it.

must confess… I was looking for the “continuer sans accepter”
and, after looking at “En savoir plus” which wandered all over the place to no avail…
all I could see was “refuser et s’abonner”

If they’ve got the option to refuse all… as most sites do… they seem to have hidden it well.